


Hair of the Dog That Bit You

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, Animal Attack, Animal Violence, M/M, Non-graphic depictions of violence, Werewolves, Witchcraft, ambiguous historical fantasy setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-12-02 08:42:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11505774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: Ren owns a popular tavern, and Armitage is a respected physician in town and the surrounding villages. Their years-long friendship will survive anything -- even the bite of a werewolf. Won't it?





	1. Chapter 1

When he and Armitage were boys, playing together by the river, Ren had eaten a mushroom he could have sworn was edible -- the constellation of speckles on the friendly-looking cap reminded him exactly of the ones his parents would pick sometimes, and it didn’t smell foul, smelled good, actually, so he took a bite and didn’t feel bad. Another bite. Didn’t feel bad. He dropped the stem to the ground when he heard Armitage call that he had caught a fish, and ran across the squishy damp mud by the riverbank and didn’t think anything of it until an hour later. That was when he began to feel as cold as he often did on winter nights, when he had kicked the blanket off by mistake and the fire had gone out. “Ren?” Armitage asked him, waving his hand in front of Ren’s face, and Ren’s eyes tracked the movement with only the barest fragment of focus. “Ren, what’s wrong?”

This was no time for pride to get in the way, even Ren knew that, even at the age where boys have nothing but pride and far too much of it at that, so he confessed to Armitage that he’d eaten the mushroom and the moment the words were out, Armitage ran off -- not in fear, Ren could tell, there was a look on his face like _I can do this I can fix this I know what to do_. 

Ren had watched him go, feeling too cold and clammy and dizzy to follow. He had sunk to his knees, trembling all over, the tips of his fingers numb and scrabbling in the damp grass before him, by the time Armitage returned, it couldn’t have been more than five minutes, Armitage lived just up the hill from the river, but it had felt like a sticky and too-long stretch of time, dark and thick as the mud beneath his feet.

“Eat this!” he demanded, holding Ren by the chin -- sometimes the schoolmaster would employ this specific grip if a boy had muttered a rude comment a little too close within earshot. Armitage was sliding something between Ren’s lips, something wet and, hilariously, something that tasted and smelled far worse than the mushroom that had caused this whole panic in the first place. 

Ren managed to swallow it, probably because he was too weak to resist it, if he’d been his normal self he’d have fought tooth and nail before accepting something so vile, but now he was soft and limp and cold as the fish that Armitage had caught. For a minute he panted, held in place by Armitage’s insistent hand, his blazing green eyes. Then he doubled over and vomited.

There was a long moment of silence, and Ren was so embarrassed that he could hardly bear to face Armitage, who had gracefully moved back to get out of the way. He stared at the ground, his vision sparkling with little dots. He opened his mouth to thank Armitage, or maybe apologize, but instead, all that came out was more vomit. By that point he had begun to cry.

“Saints above,” he finally managed. “I…”

Armitage was taller than him then, and only just a bit bigger. That wouldn’t last. But in that moment, yes. At that point in time, Armitage was able to haul Ren up and sit him down on a tree stump so he could peer into Ren’s eyes, check his various signs of life. Like Ren was a little doll that belonged to him to practice on.

“What was that, that you gave me?” Ren asked, hoarse. 

“Syrup of ipecac,” Armitage had answered, brisk and knowledgeable. “An emetic.”

_Armitage knows everything_ , Ren had thought, at the time, not for the first but more like the millionth time, even then, even at that age. He had always talked about wanting to be a physician, had often cut up the rabbits and fish and birds they’d hunted to show Ren how the muscles and bones were braided together to make them move, how the joints bent and the wings flapped. But that had just seemed like boyish curiosity, not the quick thinking, the total lack of hesitation it took to save a human life, that a physician really needed. 

“Thank you,” Ren rasped.

Armitage had put his arm around Ren’s shoulder, and smiled, squeezing him in a sort of lazy-half hug. “You really should go home and rest, after all that,” he had chided softly, but neither of them had moved, just sat in the warmth of the late afternoon sun until Ren’s shivers finally receded into nothing.

* * *

The almanac had predicted a mild, snowy winter, frequent snowstorms but not much accumulation. “Bad news,” Phasma had joked when she’d come to check on Ren’s mare the morning of New Year’s Eve. “Snowbanks break a drunkard’s fall.”

“If they get hurt, they can just come back for another swallow of whiskey,” Ren had answered, grinning. “A cure for all ills, right?”

“Stealing your best friend’s business? I ought to tell him.”

“He’s not home yet. He’s coming in from the wilds this evening, though, and then you can report me all you like.” Fifteen days out of every thirty, Armitage was away in the neighboring villages and homesteads -- the only doctor many people would ever see in their entire lives. Though the town where he and Ren lived wasn’t much than a tiny dot on the map, at least the map included it at all, and to the outsiders, it was a metropolis, what with its post office and its inn, and the tavern that Ren had inherited from his grandfather. The outer village women sought the advice of their midwives just as they always had when it came to births, or when it came to preventing them, and traditional remedies were still the favored treatment for most ailments. But when a child came down with a fever or a man was kicked by a horse, someone was sent to find him right away. _He is trustworthy_ , Ren had heard patrons of the tavern say, more than a few times. They toasted him in thanks for the lives of their children.

“I just might,” Phasma teased, accepting the ale that Ren had just poured for her. “Will he be at the celebration this evening?”

“If he plans to skip it, I’ll drag him from his bed.” Ren didn’t think he would, though. Armitage often returned from his circuit around the villages tired and haggard, looking like he could use a bit of medicine himself, but he was still always happy to spend time in the tavern with Ren, the two of them trading stories and gossip about unusual or noteworthy people they’d encountered. “How’s Celeste?”

“Much better. Just sore muscles, I think. Don’t ride her for a week or so, take Nyx instead.” She saw the face he made. “I know she hates you. I know. But if you work Celeste too hard you’ll really injure her. I mean it.”

“Hmm,” he said, already wondering if he could just borrow another horse for a week. Nyx had been his mother’s horse, but when she moved to the capital to help with the war effort, she’d left the horse in his care, not seeming to care that Nyx went completely mad when anyone who wasn’t Leia tried to ride her. 

“She’ll get you to the inn and back,” Phasma said. “Even she can handle that.” 

“I can’t sell her to you? Trade her?”

“Not for all the tea in China. But I’ll help you take the kegs and bottles to the inn for tonight, if you could use the help.”

“Couldn’t I always?”

“Pour me another ale for warmth, then.”

It was not even cold enough to snow, though, and Ren even felt sweat beading on his brow once he and Phasma had finished loading the ox cart with drinks for the New Year’s festival. A single horse would get them there in hardly ten minutes, by taking the narrow, wooded road right along the same river where Ren had nearly poisoned himself fifteen years before, but that was no option for a bulky operation like this, so they took the wide commercial road, longer and slower but far safer. It gave them more time to chat, though.

“Will your fair prince finally get a dance with you this evening?” Ren asked, only barely hiding his grin at the thought.

“Do not let me get _that_ drunk,” she warned. “I refuse to lead the poor boy on, and I thought I made that perfectly clear.”

“Love is blinding,” Ren said. “Especially to a hopeful young thing like Mitaka.”

“Ask Armitage if he has a cure for blindness, then. Some tincture to open Mitaka up to the concept that I have no intention on marrying him.”

“Not even a touch of your tender hand in his?”

She barked with laughter at that, turning over her hands as if considering them for the first time. “Perhaps I should agree to marry him if he can help me birth a foal without fainting.”

“He might soldier through, if that were at stake.”

“I almost want to make him the offer, just to watch him squirm.” Phasma sighed, turning back in the cart to make sure all the kegs were in place after one wheel hopped over a rock in the road that made the whole cart wobble. “Do you remember when Dameron’s horse was attacked by a wolf a few months ago? That almost turned _my_ stomach. I can’t believe it survived as long as it did. Poor thing.” 

“Perhaps he’ll buy Nyx. My mother always liked him, and she likes what my mother likes.”

“Not a chance. He already has a new bay dun that follows him like a puppy.”

“Too bad.” 

By the time the inn came into view, it was clear that preparations were already well under way for the evening’s festivities. Cheeses and preserved vegetables and salted meats were being carried inside by the armful from other carts and wagons, and it took no time at all for the innkeeper’s young sons to run out and help Ren and Phasma unload, reducing the task to mere minutes. (“They think they’ve earned a cut of the product if they share in the work,” Ren murmured to Phasma, making her laugh.) Inside, the garlands of holly and mistletoe still hung from the Christmas celebrations, but the carved Nativity scene that had dominated the mantle had been replaced with a wicker basket filled with crowns of paper flowers and paper hats, as well as whistles and noisemakers to ring in the coming year. The smells of cooking were pouring out, thick as jelly, from the kitchen, and the inkeeper’s wife was scolding her youngest for stealing a bite of a scorching-hot pie, burning his tongue in the process.

“How can I possibly feel sorry for you, after I told you a thousand times not to--”

A voice cut above the talking and chiding, the bustle of movement.

“Ren!”

He turned and there was Armitage, pale and tired and in his worn traveling clothes and a day’s growth of stubble across his face, but present, just like he’d promised he’d be. “Don’t look at me until I’ve washed,” Armitage groaned, but it was clear he was exhausted -- his normal venomous verve was entirely drained away. Washed or not, it didn’t stop Ren from rushing over to fold him into a fond, back-clapping embrace, as if Armitage had been gone a year instead of a week. 

“Not so hard, Ren, you’ll crush me,” Armitage laughed, though he made no attempt to pull away. “I’ll have to be dragged home on a sled.”

“I can load you onto the ox cart.”

“I wouldn’t turn down some company back to the other side of town. Just so I can freshen up enough to venture back out among the townsfolk.”

“So you are coming tonight?” Ren asked as they walked back over to Phasma, who was asking one of the farmers from the next village over what it might cost to buy one of his hunting dog’s pups. 

“Ren, I have to rest...”

“Armitage, it’s New Year’s!”

“I’ve been riding all day,” Armitage protested, shaking Ren’s shoulders as if hoping to knock some sense into him. “What you ought to do is thank the Blessed Virgin that I’m even considering coming at all.”

Phasma approached, pleased, it seemed, with whatever price she had secured for the puppy. “Heading back?” she asked, pulling Armitage into a one-armed hug. 

“The babe in arms needs to be put to bed.”

“Go easy on the poor doctor Hux, he’s out saving lives,” Phasma teased. “What have you done for society lately?”

“I’ll have you know I provide an essential service,” Ren answered, frowning clownishly. “I keep the peace and sanity for these fine townspeople.”

“You provide _vice_.”

“Even the Lord turned water into wine,” Armitage piped up in defense.

“You see? I’m the very image of Christ.”

Phasma rolled her eyes. “Armitage, I could ride your horse back to town if you can’t stand to be in the saddle anymore. You and Ren can take the cart back home.”

“You’d do it?” Armitage’s eyes gleamed with relief. “I’d appreciate it more than I can say.”

“I can be helpful every now and then.”

“She’s a liar,” Ren announced, climbing up into the cart and reaching for Tidge’s hand to help him into the seat beside him. “She’s helpful all the time.”

That earned them a smile, and a promise to make sure the horse was fed and watered, before Ren and Armitage headed back down the wide road, into the too-bright orange of the setting sun. Ren squinted, shielded his eyes as the oxen plodded onward.

“So how many lives did you save this time?” Ren asked, the cart jostling and bouncing all the more now that it was empty.

“So many I lost count. I’ve been elected for sainthood by the fine folks of the forest.”

“Sounds like you slapped some bandages on a few sores and thought yourself Saint Jude for your trouble.”

Armitage laughed. “That’s closer to the truth than I’d like to admit, at least this time around. Last month, things were far more exciting.”

“If you’re going to miss the festivities, you might as well have lied to me and said you had performed some grisly surgery that wore you out.”

“Is it too late for that now?”

Ren grinned. “Come to the tavern tomorrow, if you can’t drag yourself out of bed tonight.”

“But it’ll be closed.”

“Not for you. You know that.”

Armitage gripped the seat as the cart gave him a particularly sharp bounce. Once everything had settled again, he patted Ren’s shoulder. “Done. I’ll be there. I’d say bright and early, but neither of us will be doing much of anything earlier than noon.”

The sun caught the red of Armitage’s hair, and added a fairy-tale sort of glow to his wan skin. _He’s not just the most intelligent person in this village, he’s the best-looking, too._ This was not the first time Ren had considered this particular truth, but as always, he held his tongue. The only person who could be trusted with this information was Phasma, who had confessed a similar sort of desire for a wealthy city woman who had purchased a horse from her the previous summer -- no one besides Ren knew this, least of all her poor clueless suitor. 

“I’ll come tonight if I can, Ren,” Armitage promised, climbing down from the cart once they had arrived in front of his house. “I promise.”

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Ren said, grinning again, before setting off for home.

* * *

Nyx was in a mood just about every day of the year, but today she had elected to be especially obnoxious. “Nyx, good girl,” Ren said as he approached her in the stable, and they both knew he didn’t mean it. She tossed her head, snorting like a bull, and turned to look over at Celeste in her stall, like she would back Nyx up somehow. 

“Just pretend I’m my mother for a minute,” Ren growled. “Please? I’ll give you sugar, until your teeth rot out of your head, just please work with me.”

At first, he thought he’d won her over -- he’d have to ask Phasma if horses knew what hearing the word ‘sugar’ meant -- but it was, as he should have expected, a bait and switch. She let him get her out of the stall, out of the stable, onto the narrow wooded road that would get him to the inn as quickly as possible. Then, halfway down the path, she stopped short, as if she had arrived at their destination instead of just in the middle of a dark path. 

“Nyx,” he said, leaning in to indicate she needed to get moving again. “Nyx, forward. Let’s go.”

She pretended to be fascinated with a dry leaf under her foot, acting like she hadn’t heard him at all. 

“Nyx! Sugar! We’ll get sugar when we get there!”

Nothing. 

Growling with frustration, Ren climbed down off the saddle to search through his satchel for some sugar to give her. _Celeste wouldn’t act like this, damn it_. He was tempted to simply beg a ride off the next person to come this way -- it was a well-traveled road, and surely someone would come by any minute on their way to the inn. But the thought of having to explain his dilemma, not to mention what to do with Nyx in the meantime, was too embarrassing and complicated to really bother with. He’d just have to get her moving.

“Nyx, Nyxy, you demon, if I give you some sugar will you _please_ go with--”

Her head shot up all of a sudden, her ears flicking, and it was suddenly clear to Ren that whatever she was up to now had nothing to do with how she felt about him. “Nyxy, easy,” Ren murmured, reaching out to stroke her neck. “It’s all right.” He wondered if she could hear the carousing from down the road, maybe some fools who had already broken into the ale making some noises that were frightening her. 

The moment his fingertips made contact, though, she reared back like his touch was a hot poker, screaming in protest, the whites of her eyes showing as she cried out. “Nyx!” he shouted, never wishing more badly in his life that Phasma was around to help him. “Nyx, it’s me, it’s all r--”

Her front hooves touched the ground and then she was off, thundering down the path in the direction of the inn, taking his satchel with her. _Damn that beast straight to hell!_ Well, now it seemed like he didn’t have much of a choice but to beg a ride. At least it would make a decent story once he got there. 

He was working on how he’d tell it to the other guests-- 

_Didn’t I say it, from the first day my mother brought her home, that she was the devil in a horse’s hide? And to think, Mother expects me to marry, but I can hardly hold my own against a filly--_

\--when the enormous weight of something landed on, no, _against_ him, knocking him to his knees and then shoving his face into the dirt so sparks exploded behind his eyelids and he could hardly draw a breath, a sudden wave of aching dizziness settling through him even as his head shrieked in pain. There was no way he could scream when he couldn’t even get enough air to make any sound except a horrible soft gurgle. Would anybody hear him--was anybody coming up the path, would they even dare approach while this horrible weight was on him, snarling in his ear, its hot saliva pouring down his neck unless that was blood, was he dying--? “Hgh--” he managed, fueled purely by adrenaline, trying to pull himself out from whatever was on top of him, throwing his hand out in front of him as if he could possibly drag himself away from the creature. 

“Ren!” a familiar voice screamed, and he tried to turn his head to see, almost like he had _forgotten_ that he was being attacked by an animal, but of course he couldn’t see, could barely move, and every breath was an effort, and it didn’t help that his heart was pounding harder than it ever had in his life like it was in cahoots with the beast, helping him fade out faster, he tried to turn himself onto his side but it hurt too much, too much work--and then there was the sound of a shot, and the animal growled again, then another shot, this one sounding further-off, sounding like it had been fired underwater, though of course that was impossible, maybe Ren was the one who was underwater…

….and then suddenly the weight was gone, and the last thing Ren heard before the darkness sucked him up, every last drop of him, was the sound of his name being called once again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren receives two pieces of news that could change everything -- one that could bring him closer to someone he cares about, and one that could tear him apart from someone else he's close to.

Ren woke at three o’clock in the afternoon in a bed at Armitage’s practice on the first day of the new year, stiff with bandages, aching underneath the poultices. His lips felt like rotten wood when he ran his tongue along them as he came to, and his ears were ringing.

“Armitage,” he called, or thought he called, but no one came, and when he tried to raise his voice he realized he could barely push it past a whisper. The leaves skittering on the road outside, the wind making the trees beyond the window shiver, they were all louder than he was. He wanted water so badly he thought he would go insane.

It took another ten minutes or so before he was checked on, but as soon as Armitage saw his eyes were open, he came running.

“You’re awake,” Armitage said, his normal upright grace cast aside so he could crouch by the bed, see the damage a little more closely. “I wasn’t sure how long it would take -- Ren, I was so worried…”

“Don’t say that,” Ren whispered as loud as he could. “Don’t want to hear the doctor thought I was going to die.”

“More like the doctor would have wrestled the devil himself to prevent it.”

“Is that who you saw coming for me?” Ren managed a smile. His vision wasn’t impaired, it seemed, besides the normal blur and crust of waking up after a long and awful sleep. “Do you know what happened to me?”

There was a moment of silence before Armitage answered, in his normal clipped, clinical manner: “You were attacked by a wolf. You’ve sustained bites to your right shoulder and there are cuts on your back and arms, too.” He stood, crossed the room to fetch his black medical bag and a cup of water--he must have seen how dry Ren's mouth was-- and put on a pair of gloves before returning to Ren’s side, to examine whatever seeping evil was lurking under those bandages while Ren drank greedily. “I’ve cleaned the wounds and given you the best of my treatments, Ren. I don’t think anything will fester.” 

“What happened to the wolf? I heard gunshots…”

“The wolf’s body wasn’t found.”

“It’s still out there?”

Armitage swallowed hard, his eyes still on the mess that had been Ren’s shoulder. “To the best of my knowledge.”

“What about Nyx?” Ren asked. 

“Nyx was found by the river, not too far from the inn. Poe Dameron took her home for you. Your satchel was still on her back. The wine bottles inside were broken, though.”

“I don’t give a damn about the wine bottles.”

Armitage smiled wryly. “That doesn’t sound like the Ren I know.”

“What about the party?”

“What about it?”

“Did it still happen?”

“Yes. Some folks went out to go looking for the wolf when they heard the news, though. They didn’t find it. The priest wanted to give you last rites, but I told him I was confident you would make it.” He scoffed, but there was something sad about it. “In truth I didn’t want to consider the possibility you’d need them. I sent him away.”

“You were right, though.” _Because Armitage knows everything…_

“And I couldn’t be more relieved.” Armitage finished looking at the wounds and straightened up. Gazing down on Ren, who had never felt weaker in his life, he looked like God, intervening yet again to make sure he didn’t die. “But there’s something else I need to do, Ren.”

“What’s that.”

Armitage crossed the room again, this time to draw a medal on a slender chain from a drawer in a desk that was stacked neatly with papers, pens and journals. “Here,” he said, returning to Ren’s side once more. “Hold this.”

Ren reached out with his good arm, his palm flat to accept the medal. When it fell into his hand, though, the same kind of pain shot up his arm that might have if he had placed his palm too close to a lit candle. “Jesus!” he wheezed, using the tiny fraction of strength that he’d recovered to throw the medal as far away from him as he could. It wasn’t much of a throw -- the medal only made it a few feet, pooling on the ground in a shiny heap. “Armitage, what _was_ that?”

Armitage took a deep breath, preparing to speak, but then let it out in silence, his gloved hands on his waist.

“What did you give me?”

“Silver,” Armitage responded, a little too quick and sharp. “A St. Christopher medal made of pure silver.” His tone softened as he picked up the medal and put it back in the drawer where it had come from. “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’ll give you something for the burn, as if you’re not in bad enough shape. I simply--I had to conduct a test to confirm my theory.”

“What theory?” Ren whispered. He could feel himself growing light and raw with agony. Was it the sensation of burning -- it had been a burn, then? --, or the way he had moved too quickly and hard and made all his other injuries blaze with pain, or the awful look on Armitage’s face like he was feeling all of Ren’s pain too through some psychic link? 

“In my last tour of the surrounding villages,” Armitage said, every word surgeon-deliberate. “I saw a case like this. A man who had been mauled by a wolf. The others wouldn’t touch him. He was so close to death that all I could do was make the end painless.” He came and crouched back down next to Ren, brushing his sweat-damp hair back from his face. “I asked them what they knew. They said he had been bitten by a demon, a monster that wasn’t a man and wasn’t a wolf, but something in between. I spent days interviewing people, taking notes on the lore. On the history, on the cures and remedies--whatever had originally attacked him was still out there. But no one had been able to find it. Everyone believed it was someone from another village. The suspicion and the doubt, the fear...it is boiling, Ren. I didn’t dare stay out there last night, when the moon was full. But we all share the same woods, and it didn’t matter.”

Ren tried to focus on the sensation of Armitage’s hand on his forehead instead of on the fear that was rising up through his body, making him feel light as dandelion fluff, woozy, beyond anxious.

“There--there are cures, then?”

“There are treatments,” Armitage allowed. “I will treat you.”  
Ren closed his eyes, longer than a blink. _Armitage has me, Armitage will save me--_

“We have an entire month, Ren,” Armitage said. “And I may--be able to take you to someone who can help, too. A white witch. You can control it, if enough is done in time.”

Ren nodded, helpless. What else could he say? He ought to be rejoicing that he had survived, down on his knees with gratitude, but a deeper fear within him whispered that perhaps, like the man that Armitage had told him about, he would be better off dead--

Perhaps the look on his face said more of what he was thinking than he had intended, because Armitage brushed his hair back again, pressing his hand to his forehead, not too hard, but with a purposeful pressure that was soothing.

“I’ve sent a letter to your cousin to have her come help with the tavern,” Armitage said softly. “Only for a short while. Someone will need to run it while I take you out of town.”

Normally, Ren would have gritted his teeth at the thought of having Rey come take over _his_ business, even for a brief time. The two of them were like two rams, butting heads at the slightest provocation, and they brought out the competitiveness in one another. But he had to admit she was smart, and good at business, and she would drop anything she was doing upon hearing that he had been attacked. “And my mother?” Ren asked.

“I wasn’t going to trouble her unless I absolutely had to.”

Ren smiled at that. “Good man.”

“I know a thing or two, funnily enough.”

“Perhaps even three.” He wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much. Instead, he looked at the mark on his hand that the St. Christopher medal had left, a thumbnail-sized oval of discolored skin. “Armitage. Promise me this isn’t -- a farce. You know I trust you, please don’t…”

Armitage’s hand moved to cup Ren’s cheek. “I promise,” he whispered, sounding, for a second, just as creaky and tired as Ren was. There was no fakery in the determination on his face, or the way his lip just barely trembled as he spoke. “Ren, I--I sent the priest away for another reason--I was afraid if he placed holy water on you, it would burn you, and he would know--I only want to protect you, Ren, I promise. If he saw, God! The way those people in the village behaved, they burnt the man’s body instead of burying him because they were so frightened.” He leaned in even closer, careful not to bump Ren’s injured shoulder. “I would never let that happen to you. I’m going to help you…”

It was almost worth the dull, gnawing, awful ache of the pain creeping out from under the poultices for this, to hear Armitage swear himself like a knight to defend Ren’s life, his soul, his well-being. “I don’t doubt you,” Ren mumbled. “Never would.”

“That’s all I can ask. For you to trust me.” Armitage pressed his hand into Ren’s cheek just a bit harder before drawing away, pulling off his gloves. “Rest. All right? You’re safe with me…”

_Safe. Safe. Safe…_

He refused to dream of wolves or fires or the attack, the _weight_ on him, of his flesh smoking under shackles of silver. He refused. He would dream only of Armitage tending to him, taking him to someone who would help him, he would only dream of the cool soft feeling of Armitage’s hand on him….

* * *

By the end of the second day of the month, Ren was deemed well enough to return home. Part of him resented having to leave the safety of Armitage’s care. Despite the regularity of the pain, it had been oddly satisfying to have an excuse to have Armitage so close all the time, ensuring there was no risk of fever, keeping his wounds clean and soaked in whatever sort of healing goop that Armitage was so fond of. At night, Armitage would climb the stairs to his quarters just above his practice, and Ren would imagine his nightly routine, wondering what every creak of the floor represented. Was he restless, shifting in bed, or was he…?

The wondering eased the pain. The closeness itself felt like remedy.

But of course there was no substitute for the relief sleeping in one’s own bed, making coffee and tea in one’s own kitchen, feeling well enough to go to the stable and stroke Celeste’s nose and even forgive Nyx for abandoning him. “I’d have run too, if I’d have known,” he told her gruffly, offering her the handful of sugar that he’d promised, and she took it from him, more docile than he’d ever seen her without his mother around. 

He was just leaving the stable, still moving slowly, deliberately, but able to get around after being attacked by a _werewolf_ , for Christ’s sake, when he saw Phasma making her way to his front door, her cloak fluttering in the wind. It was the first time he’d seen her since the attack, and it was heartening to know she was coming to visit at last.

“Over here,” he called. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? Or sore everything.”

She smiled, but there was something stiff and unnatural about it -- just a step above baring her teeth. “I’d like to talk to you,” she said, blunt, and her eyes were red, and for a horrible moment Ren was sure someone had died. 

“Of course, Phas-- what’s the matter?”

She waited for him to open the door and indicate he should follow her in, waited for him to close the door and sit down at the table with her, before she spoke.

“I wanted to let you know. Mitaka and I are going to get married.”

He simply gaped at her.

“What are you talking about?” he finally asked, realizing he was gripping the edge of the table as though he was worried he’d fall out of his chair.

She swallowed thickly, not meeting his eye. “He bought a great deal of land quite cheaply out in Montana. There’s room to raise more horses, and I could -- have my own business.” She paused. “We leave tomorrow night for the capital, and take the train first thing in the morning to go West. I’m selling the horses I have now to invest in buying more of them when we get there.”

“Phasma, what--you’re not making sense--did he _force_ you?” That seemed absolutely impossible; there was nothing that a simperer like Mitaka could do to intimidate Phasma, who carried a gun on her hip and had stomped a rattlesnake to death when it bit one of her horses, who had more than once taken on tavern-goers who had been too unruly and come out on top every time. “Did he blackmail you? I’ll break his arm if--”

“I made this choice myself,” Phasma interrupted, finally looking up at him, the blue of her eyes luminous against the bloodshot-red. “Ren, I know--I know it’s sudden. But I made the decision. I’ll have so much more out there. It’s worth it for me.”

“But you don’t want to marry him,” Ren protested, watching her press her hands to her forehead as if hearing him remind her was giving her a headache. “You--you don’t even _like_ him…Phasma, you’re clearly upset about this--”

“I have to do this,” she hissed, from under the shade of her hands. “The opportunity is too good--I won’t get a chance like this again, Ren. I’m so sorry that it has to be so sudden. But I’m leaving.”

She got up from her chair and bent down to hug him around the non-injured shoulder. “I’ll write you, all the time,” she whispered in his ear. “I care about you and the horses so much, all right? I’ll send mail as soon as we have an address…”

He grabbed her wrist, not yanking, but drawing her closer, suddenly terrified to let go. “Phasma, no--please tell me what’s going on?”

“I _have_ told you,” she said. “Ren. I’m so sorry. But everything is going to be better for me this way.”

He had no idea how he could possibly believe her, but he let go of her hand, and nodded, and watched her walk out the door and head back down the road, her back straight and her head held high as though she knew he was waiting for her to wipe her face or break down in sobs, right there in the middle of the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, here we go! Things are sure getting intense, huh? Thanks so much for all the encouraging words! This AU has bee kicking my writer's block in the butt.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans must be made for Ren to cope with his new condition, and he hopes to get more information from Phasma on her abrupt disappearance.

The healing came slowly but it came. The shoulder was the worst, of course, and Ren hated the twice-daily task of having to apply the salve that Armitage had given him to help facilitate the healing. But it was working. By the end of the first week of the month, the grotesque, gaping mouth of the wound had closed up, and the pain wasn't so bad. The cuts on his arms were almost gone, just scrapes that any man in town could have gotten from falling down the stairs or stumbling in the street, and the shallows cut on his back was nearly invisible. Only the faint silvery scar remained.

He was able to work in the tavern, and thankfully almost everyone was understanding about how slowly he moved, some of the time. Ren had never been the sort who wanted to lie around, shiftless, letting other men do his work, but if he pushed himself too hard now, he'd undo everything Armitage had done to heal him. He left the heavy lifting to others, the kegs of ale, the bottles of wine. "Perhaps we can call my old mother back home," he'd joke with the patrons who were inquiring after him. "She can carry more than I can, at the moment."

It was better when they didn't hide their pity and questions behind whispers and stares that they only thought were subtle. It was better when they asked, was it true? A wolf attacked him, a wolf bit him? Ren played up his bravado, joked and japed like always.

"You ought to see the bites I gave that bastard in return," he'd tell them with a laugh, and they'd clink their glasses and toast his health.

Things were going back to normal, except they weren't.

Harder was understanding what had happened to him, and what that might have to do with Phasma's disappearance. 

_It couldn't have been her. It couldn't have been._

And yet. There was no denying how odd it was that she suddenly left not just town but left for the unsettled plains of Montana, so soon after his attack. Taking Mitaka's hand in marriage when she had so vocally dismissed him before the attack. As though she had something to run away from.

"It was not her," Armitage reassured him. Ren had brought up his concerns to him when he came to the clinic to get another jar of the salve that he had been using, but also to talk, to get updates about what action he could possibly take before the next full moon. "Ren, I know how it looks, and how it sounds. But she was on her way to the party when it happened. Multiple people told me that she came to your side as you were being brought back to town to be treated. She couldn't have been around that night, under the moon with you, if it were her."

Ren nodded, exhaling loudly. "Then why do you think she went so suddenly? Went with Mitaka?"

It took a long time for Armitage to answer. He seemed to be carefully selecting each word, stringing together his reply so he was sure to say exactly what he meant. "I imagine she knew something was not right. I imagine she feared for her own safety, or that of her horses. Perhaps life with Mitaka was her ticket out of a place she thought could be dangerous."

"You think she knows--that there's a creature?"

"I think she suspects."

"Why didn't she tell me?"

"I imagine she doesn't know that--what happened to you, has happened to you. She might think she would sound insane..."

Ren closed his hand around the jar of salve, squeezing it like he intended to crush it. "Armitage. I want to go out and see her. If she'll have me. I want to talk to her, away from here -- she might speak more freely if I do." He relaxed his hand, opening it again to stare down at the jar. "Will you go with me if I do?"

"You know I couldn't leave my patients for so long, Ren." Armitage looked truly pained, sitting there with his arms crossed, his face cloudy with anxiety. "I would like nothing better than to come along, you know that. But my patients need me-- the villagers, and the townspeople. I would fail in my duties to them if I spent such a long time away."

Ren said nothing for a moment, knowing Armitage was right, but the disappointment tasted sharp and strong as vinegar. Quickly, Armitage added:

"But I promised I would take you to a white witch, a woman of the woods that I have encountered in my circuit around the villages. She's highly regarded by the local people -- very highly. Even the priest turns a blind eye to her doings, you know, which says a lot about how helpful she is. She can give you something to help."

After a moment, Armitage stood up and approached Ren, looking at him all of a sudden with a doctor's eye. 

"Do you notice any other--unusual symptoms?" he asked, brisk.

"Only dreams. Of the attack. And the silver -- I've touched silver again, by mistake, and it burns, just like the first time. Those are the only things."

"Do you feel different emotionally?"

"Armitage, am I your experiment now?" Ren snapped. "Your healthy specimen?"

The look on Armitage's face was one of a man slapped. "Don't say that," Armitage told him, looking stern, the way he'd sometimes look when they were kids and he was offended by some jest Ren had made. "Don't think that way. You aren't a _specimen_ , you're someone whose condition I'm trying to understand. The way a doctor would try to understand any illness."

"A magic illness."

"An illness that is not yet understood! Ren, I want to give you life -- a full life, a life free of shame or persecution, and I can't do that unless I understand what's happening to you."

There were tears in his eyes, and Ren felt his anger wither away, seeing that. Armitage was only trying to help, and he had lashed out -- like a beast, like a wolf. Was this a symptom? Probably not of anything other than his own frustration and pain and confusion. He stood too, placing his free hand on Armitage's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he offered. "I..."

"I suppose I phrased the question like you were a specimen," Armitage admitted, leaning into Ren's touch. "It's just the methodology I use. But. Not particularly senstitive. I just wanted to know if anything seemed...obvious. About your condition."

"No. Not yet. Just the silver. It's easy enough to avoid."

Armitage nodded. "Good. Will your cousin be here by the first of next week?"

"She should be. I got a brief letter ahead of her arrival."

"Can she watch the tavern while I take you on my circuit? No need to lie -- we _are_ taking you to someone to help with your bite."

"If I give her a day," Ren said, feeling himself crack a smile despite himself. "The tavern will be hers by sundown. I'll never be able to wrestle back control."

Armitage smiled too, relieved the tension was broken. "Well, I'm sure you'll figure out some way to chase her out again once you're better. She's doing you quite the favor."

"No denying it. Though she'll give me hell for it, I'm sure."

"The price you have to pay." Armitage clapped him on the back, the side free of injuries. "Go on, then, back to work with you. I've got other patients besides you, you know."

"But we both know I'm your favorite."

Armitage's face pulled itself into a sly expression, teasing, almsot sarcastic, but also earnest -- a face that Ren could just about die looking at. "We both know. Our secret."

And who better to trust with a secret than Armitage? Just like he always had, ever since he was small. Armitage hadn't betrayed his secrets when they were boys, when Ren was keeping a pet toad under his bed, when he had sneaked a bottle of his father's gin out of its hiding spot, when he had gotten into a fight with a schoolmate and Armitage had bound up his leg so the cut he'd gotten from falling to the ground was less noticable. And of course the secrets of the unspoken variety, because Armitage knew everything, there was no way Armitage was oblivious to the way Ren looked at him, when they were alone --

The thought of secrets was chased from his head, though, when he went to fetch his mail after leaving the Armitage's practice and saw he had a letter from Phasma.

He didn't even wait until he was home to read it, but instead tore it open and devoured it all while standing outside of the post office. 

_Ren,_

_I'm sorry I didn't get a better chance to talk to you before I left. If you're angry with me, I don't blame you, though I hope you're not. I don't want this to be the end of our friendship. This was an opportunity I chose to take for myself, to raise my horses and more of them out west. I wish the timing were different, so I could be there for your recovery. I hope you're doing better. I promise we'll see each other again soon, but the town is not the place for me right now._

_Mitaka and I were married the day we arrived in Montana, just at the courthouse. It isn't what I imagined for myself. But I'm safe and there is more land here than I could have ever imagined. That's what I need right now._

_-Phasma  
_

He read the letter three times, and his hand itched to crush it into a ball, throw it into the street, it was so frustrating, it answered no questions, it was so brief. But he managed to resist the urge, and instead he folded it and placed it in the pocket with the healing salve, and then walked back to the tavern to prepare for the afternoon's drinkers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter, but I'm juggling a new job and my writing time's a bit limited! But I HAD to get back into this story, I'm so excited for it to develop! So here's a nice bite to keep y'all interested.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren leaves for the villages with Armitage. His dreams are troubled, but reality might just be sweeter than ever -- if he can just make it through the next full moon.

Ren woke early the morning after receiving Phasma's vague, odd letter, too early. Dreaming of wolves. A wolf. Wolves. Wolves? The dream had been murky and full of panic, and when he woke his mouth felt like the dead ashes from the fireplace had been poured down his throat. Wolves. Multiple?

Two wolves in the woods. One killed the other. That was what had happened in the dream, and for some reason -- Ren sat up, shoving back his sweat-soaked hair, thinking -- for some reason, he felt certain that it was _real_. That he had seen something that had actually happened, it had to have been-- the night he was bitten.

One wolf killed the other. And now there was only one wolf in the woods.

No. That wasn't right. There were two again. _He_ was the second one, now.

Maybe it was a sign that he would kill his maker. He could be the only wolf in the area, and one night a month rule the whole forest, hunt and run and do anything he pleased, he could be the only one -- surely he wouldn't do the same to anyone else? He could be good--

_Stop! Stop this!_

What was he thinking? He couldn't live like that, both man and beast. Armitage was going to help him, was going to save him, that's what Armitage had promised. Cure him. The white witch could help. He just had to be patient. When Armitage left for his circuit around the villages with Ren in tow, it would all be taken care of. He would be fine. Like taking the ipecac to purge out the poison. 

The dreams of teeth and muddy pawprints and the rush of fear, the rush of power, the feeling of biting down--they could stop. 

How many times had he had this dream since the event itself, he wondered. 

Ren reached for the cup of water he'd placed on his bedside stand before going to sleep the night before, drained it. He didn't need to get up for another hour at least, but there was no way he would be able to just lie back down and close his eyes. Instead, he made his way to his writing table to light a candle and try and figure out some reply to Phasma. 

It took a few false starts and wasted papers before Ren had a response he was satisfied with, but by the time the sun had come up, he had--well, something. 

_  
Phasma,_

_I'm not angry with you, I promise -- though I imagine I certainly acted that way when I saw you last. I was simply so surprised by the suddenness of your departure, and frankly, upset by the prospect of you doing anything out of fear or coercion. Did you leave for Montana out of fear of the beast that attacked me, or fear it would attack your horses? Phasma, I only want to understand better._

_My recovery is going well, better than I had hoped when I first woke in Armitage's clinic. It was a frightening event but I'm getting better, and I'm hoping I'll be well enough to travel very soon. May I come and visit you at your new home sometime in the next few weeks? Rey is on her way to come and help me out at the tavern, and she can help keep things running in my stead while I come and say hello. It would mean a lot to me to see you in person._

_Please write back soon, please. It's so hard to adjust to life without such a good friend here. This would perhaps be helpful for us both?_

_Ren  
_

It wasn't perfect, still, but what could possibly suffice? _What the hell has happened, what did you see, who can't you trust?_ The answer was an obvious mystery, of course. 

"She knows who it is," Ren said aloud. Who had bitten him, who had hurt him. Who had -- changed him. But who? Not Mitaka, if she had agreed to marry him -- unless -- maybe she was removing him from the village? To protect the other people she loved? But that seemed strange, just as full of questions and unlikelihoods. The simpler explanation was that she had used him as her ticket out of a place where someone knew she knew. But Ren couldn't imagine who that would be.

He didn't want to think about it.

Instead, he folded the letter into thirds and tucked it into his coat pocket so he wouldn't forget to take it to the post office, and then resigned himself to getting an early start to his day.

* * *

"You actually run a half-decent place, who'd have thought?" Rey asked, helping herself to mug of ale while Ren gave her the painstaking tour of the tavern. She'd been here before, years ago, a kid, really. Now she was a woman, engaged and whip-smart, independent as a cat and twice as charming. When they were young they lived to torment one another, and it didn't help she was the apple of his mother's eye. But he'd never been so relieved to see her. Today he'd be leaving with Hux to meet the white witch that was supposed to be able to help him, and he knew the place was in good hands in his absence.

"Imagine that," Ren answered. "I know you'll do a good job, and everyone will like you..."

"Christ, the fever took your senses. Is that really you, or did the devil climb in your mouth and make you say that?"

Ren snorted. "Well, you'll do okay, I suppose. At the very least, anyone who thinks he can cheat you will be in for a surprise." He knew from experience that fighting with Rey was a losing game, and still had the scar from their youth to prove it. It made him happy that she refused to go soft and tender and cuddly -- it would have made him sad if she had. 

"That's better."

"If you drink me dry I'll break your arm."

"I can still take you with the other one. Go on with Armitage, he's been standing outside waiting for you for twenty minutes." She stood behind the bar like she really did own the place, one hand on her hip and the other one holding the mug. There was something in her expression that made Ren think -- just for a second -- that she knew far more than she could possibly know. That she knew exactly where he was going, and why.

It helped that the official story and the truth were only a few shades from being one and the same, just as Armitage had said. If asked, Ren was leaving the tavern to Rey for the time being so they could seek out a cure for infected animal bites from a folk medical expert that Armitage knew and trusted. "Just leave out the words 'witch' and 'supernatural'," Armitage had said, "And this is the God's honest truth." 

And Ren couldn't help but be excited to see Armitage in action on his rounds away from the town. He already knew how clever and essential Armitage was in the town, but in the villages, Armitage was practically considered a witch himself, at least when it came to some things. They rode for half a day before coming to the first one -- on borrowed horses, Celeste still wasn't ready to go and Ren no longer trusted Nyx, even though he knew the whole incident wasn't really her fault -- and then the village children came running up to say hello, to ask who his friend was, was he a doctor too? Would they get to look inside Armitage's bag of instruments? Could they show him how to open somebody up? It made Ren laugh to see Armitage so patient with their pestering, promising to let them look at the tools but not touch if they ran ahead and had a good hot meal waiting for himself and his companion. 

Hot chicken soup was waiting for them at what passed for an inn in this first village; really, it was just a home slightly larger than the others. When their hostess leaned in to set their lunch down in front of them, the silver crucifix hanging from her necklace brushed the back of Ren's neck, and Ren had had to quickly lie and that he had scalded himself on the soup he had pulled closer. "My fault entirely," he said smoothly, trying to calm the woman who sounded so very sorry. "I was in a rush, it smells so wonderful, and look what I've done..." 

It did smell wonderful. He had been craving chicken, he'd thought as they had dismounted by the inn, and he'd heard them clucking, seen them darting into the dirt road to see if the newcomers had brought corn. Nothing in the world would please him more than --

(bite it eat it take it just _do_ it, just grab it and devour it!)

\--the taste of chicken. 

"Besides," Ren added, trying to still reassure their poor hostess. "If I should truly hurt myself, the finest doctor in the state is here at the table with me. I have nothing to fear."

Armitage's eyes flicked over at him, approving. "He's got a silver tongue, doesn't he?" That made the woman laugh, and she retreated to the kitchen to fetch them some freshly-baked bread. In a lower voice, Armitage added -- "At least you didn't lose your tolerance for that, hm?"

"The curse didn't take _everything_ from me, now, did it?"

And Armitage smiled, and Ren fell in love all over again, simple as spilling a spoonful of soup, and it was apparent that no, it had not, it most certainly had not.

* * *

They would reach the home of the white witch between the first village and the second, Armitage had explained. First he would treat whoever needed treating in the first village, and then detour out into the forest to meet her before the second stop on his usual circuit. It would take the rest of the day, and then first thing the next morning they'd move on. With luck, they could be at the second village by noon. 

Armitage went about his usual business of treating infections, providing proper bandaging, advising the family members of those who were ill just what malady their loved one might have. It was a blessedly low-key day, apparently, and Armitage seemed to be in no great hurry as he moved from home to home,noting the health of the families inside. Ren decided to make himself useful wherever and however he could, despite his reduced ability to lift and carry, by helping their hostess feed her pigs (with only a few sidelong glances at the oblivious chickens), gathering kindling from a tree that had shed branches in a recent storm. He tossed a ball around with the village children and their dog, and helped the local priest scatter salt on the stone steps of the little chapel so the worshippers wouldn't slip on any ice. It felt strange to look a holy man in the eye and to see only a blithe, genuine expression of gratitude. 

_He doesn't know what I am!_

By the time evening fell -- why did it feel so strange and early every winter, didn't he ever get used to it? -- Ren was pleasantly tired, like he'd used to feel after an honest day's work. Lying down on the bed in the guest room that was just a hair too small for him, he felt himself start to drowse, and could hardly rouse himself even when Armitage entered maybe twenty minutes later, his black coat and black medical bag both damp with the newly-fallen snow. 

"That's all for today," Armitage said serenely, as if answering a question, but all Ren had done was blink sleepily up at him as he shrugged out of his outergarments. "An easy day. Did you wear yourself out?"

"Mmmhm."

"The villagers are already asking if I can bring you back again, to help again. They rather adore you. Perhaps you should sell the tavern to Rey and come be my companion." Armitage crouched down next to where Ren lay so their faces were level. "What do you say to that?"

Ren was still so very tired, he really had exerted himself more than he should have today -- but there was a tightening feeling in his body like a violin string being tuned, deep beneath the weariness of his muscles, down in his very nerves, a pleasant tenseness, a thrill of anticipation. The way it must feel to crouch before leaping, when an animal hunts. 

"Only if you speak so sweetly about me to everyone you meet," Ren mumbled, forcing his eyes to stay open so he could look into Armitage's face a while longer. "Did they really say that?"

"They seem sadder that you will be leaving tomorrow than that I am."

"And if I sold Rey the tavern, and lived as your companion, how would I support myself?"

"When the witch gives you her treatment," Armitage promised, "You'll be back to your old self, and you can do jobs for the villagers. Chop wood."

"Get paid in chickens, and bottles of wine?"

"Would you need money, with a life like that?"

"And then when we went back to the town? What would I do then?"

Armitage's hand went to Ren's cheek, soft and featherlight. 

"Whatever you wanted. Work for Rey."

"Never."

"Share custody, then. Or work in my clinic. I'll make a doctor out of you myself..."

"Here I thought you only..." Ren swallowed a yawn. "Wanted me for my muscle."

"And that." 

And Armitage pressed a kiss to Ren's lips, quick as anything, so fast that it took Ren's exhausted mind a moment to catch up, so by the time he could truly appreciate it, it was over and gone, a little firefly of a feeling that only lights up for a single glowing second. 

"You ought to rest, my wolf."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the slowest burn I've ever written, wow! Who knew I had it in me.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren receives help from the white witch of the woods, as well as advice he did not expect to hear.

_  
Two wolves, and one killed the other._

_Two wolves in the woods remain._

_Two wolves, snuggled side by side in a den, the greys of their fur blending, sleeping like the dead, the winter winds raging outside but they are safe and warm and protected --_

_Two wolves, crouching, circling, and then one lunged for the other's throat --  
_

"Armie," Ren croaked, knowing he was awake but just barely, there in that guest bed -- he had gotten up earlier than the sun, though in the winter that was no feat, and his mouth tasted metallic, like it had just been full of blood, poorly rinsed. How long had it been since he'd called him "Armie?" Only when they were young had he ever said such a thing. But he said it again. "Armie--"

"I'm here," came the voice, the one that send a ripple of calm through him. "Right here." There was the sound of the springs in the next bed over as Armie sat up, took just a second to stretch, then the gentle pad-pad of his feet on the rough wooden floor. Just hearing that was enough to placate him, but Ren wasn't about to turn him away. "Dreams?"

"Christ almighty," Ren answered. "Awful."

"Do you want to discuss them?"

"Do you think it's relevant?"

"If you're remembering things about your attack, then yes."

Ren was silent as he allowed the rest of his body to wake, as he combed the sleep from the inner corner of his eyes with his fingers. "Mostly just -- wolves. In my dreams." He spoke low, just in case some superstitious villager was around, the kind woman who owned the tiny in where they were staying tidying up or her daughters feeding the animals just outside their little window. Here was some fresh terror that he had not allowed himself to consider much -- what everyone else would do if they found out. 

Killed. Murdered. Tormented, burned to death on an altar of silver. A sacrifice to the woods, and a reminder of man's power over it. 

Armitage must have seen something of that in his eyes. Armitage always did know what he was thinking. "Of course," he said, silken, easy. "I'm sure it's....not easy. To wake up to that kind of thing. But we'll be at the white witch's home in under two hours, if you can get ready in the next few minutes. And then. It will be over. Just about."

Ren nodded, sitting up. "Can you promise me, Armitage?"

"Nothing's promised in this world," Armitage answered, sharp, but with a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "But. She's spoken of so highly -- and don't tell anyone that I've said this, Ren, you'll ruin me, but she has done things for the people of these villages that I cannot explain. That no doctor could."

"Either you're mad or you're desperately honest," Ren shot back, feeling relief bloom even brighter in his chest. "All right. Take me there."

Neither of them mentioned the kiss, and for a few beats, as Ren tied the laces of his boots, he wondered if that was a dream too.

* * *

To the best of anyone's knowledge, no one knew the witch's name. She supposedly withheld it, so that no one might hold power over her. Her age was also not really known to anyone, as she might have been any age between twenty and fifty. The source of that confusion came from the fact that her mother had also been a woods witch, and her mother's mother, and so on, from the time since people had settled in this area. Occasionally they would take a lover, but only long enough to grow big with child and bear a daughter, and after that they had no need for men. So no one could quite remember if the witch they had encountered was the current witch, or her mother, or her grandmother. 

But she was loved, that was what the locals were sure of. The priests and pastors might preach fire and brimstone at the pulpit, but they never named the nameless woman, and they ran to her when they needed herbs for pregnant wives or ailing mothers, same as anybody else. She asked for very little, and offered a great deal, and in exchange, her neck of the woods went undisturbed, even by children or rebellious teens. It was said that even the fiercest of local guard dogs lay down and wagged their tails and showed their bellies when they saw her on her rare visits out of her home, and even the most ill-tempered horses would go calm and placid if she crossed their path.

"So you're saying we should have brought Nyx after all," Ren said, upon hearing all of this from Armitage.

"The problem, of course, is that we couldn't get her this far in the first place."

"Maybe you'll have to move out here, then."

"After selling the tavern to Rey, I could buy a lot of land," Ren mused, almost serious. 

"What would you do with it?"

Ren shrugged. "Farm. Or rent it out to farmers. Maybe breed horses, like Phasma." He wondered if she had written back since he'd left town. Perhaps a letter would be waiting for him by the time he got home. "Anything I wanted. And you'd come and see me on your rounds."

"Rent your land and ride with me. Thought we already planned this."

Ren laughed, just to avoid having to say how badly he wished it could be so.

The house of the white witch was both what he expected and not. On one hand, it was deeply, truly isolated, deep in the woods, tucked inside a copse of walnut trees. It had been, just as Armitage had said, about two hours since they'd left the village, fortified with bread and butter from their hostess. But the spookiness that Ren had expected was not quite there. In the dead of winter, there were no flowers or herbs growing, but there were neatly-portioned patches in the front yard where Ren could tell they would come sprouting in the spring. The curtains that hid the windows from the weak winter sunshine were blue and white gingham, like the material of a little girl's dress, and smoke came up from the brick chimney. 

"Go on," Armitage said.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Aren't you coming too?"

Armitage shook his head. "The focus is on you, Ren. Let her help _you_."

"Are you just going to wait out here?"

"That's right." Armitage smiled a crooked little smile. "Are you worried for my safety? The moon's not full yet."

"That doesn't keep you safe from other wolves. Or horses that like to bolt."

"On this property, it does. The wolves will lie down on their backs and loll their tongues, and the horses won't go anywhere."

Ren snorted, hopping down off his own rented horse. "Fair enough. Well, don't go far."

He only had to knock once before the door opened, and he was admitted inside. 

The white witch, too, was only sort of what he expected. She had an unlined, somewhat unnerving face -- pale, a bit blank, a bit stiff, as if she were wearing a mask. Her garb was plain, a brown tunic over a cream-colored shift, and her mousy hair was pulled back into a simple braid. Ren felt foolish as he realized 'white' was in reference to her kind of magic, not her appearance -- he had been expecting her to have long snow-white hair, all-white clothes, that sort of thing. But she didn't seem to notice his embarassment. Instead, she said simply, looking up at him, "Wolf."

"Yes," he answered, and waited.

"You think I will cure you."

"The doctor, Armitage Hux -- he said you could."

"You cannot take poison out the water," she answered, beckoning him further into the house. With the gingham curtains drawn, the home was quite dark, even in mid-morning. "But you can add an antidote."

Ren blinked, following her into the dim cramped front room, sitting in the armchair chair that she indicated with a kind of pleasant weariness, like he came knocking on her door every single day and today was no different. "Show me your wound," she demanded, softly. 

He unbuttoned his shirt enough to slide the neckline over and reveal his naked shoulder. By this point, the wound had mostly healed, but thick scars and jagged scabs still dappled the skin. The white witch hummed as she examined it, though she did not touch him. "About two weeks?"

"About. Yes. You can help?"

"Yes." Her eyes flicked up from the wound to his face. "You will never be able to stop the transformation, you understand."

He hadn't known this. Armitage hadn't made this clear. But he nodded anyway. 

"The transformation of your body, I mean. I can help you maintain your human mind. You will still _shift_ , but not go mad with the spirit of the beast."

"For the rest of my life. I'll transform."

"You have not transformed yet, have you? No, your wounds are too fresh." The corners of her mouth turned up just a bit, the way a mother smiles when her child confesses a silly fear of monsters in the closet. "It is a fearful prospect, but more frightening to think about than do. And with my gift, you will be able to _enjoy_ this night, you will be able to remember. But the killer instincts will not be there."

"I won't attack anyone?"

Now her smile inched up a notch, a look of true amusement. "Not unless you, the man of his right mind, truly wish to."

Who might he wish to--attack? The only person who came to mind was the one who had transformed him. Perhaps that was what the dreams had been saying, that he would kill his maker, like his maker had killed his own. But what of the two wolves sleeping together, cuddled close? He brushed aside the thought, for now. "I don't. I only want to -- be as normal as I can be. As much as possible. And not hurt anyone."

"Then you will not." The white witch went to a large cabinet, which was seemed, from what Ren could see, pleasantly in line with his expectations of what a witch's ingredient collection ought to be. "As long as you wear this."

_This_ was a length of leather cord with a pointed white gem hanging from it, attached with a cleverly braided bit of twine. "Even when I'm a wolf?"

"Especially then. It is long enough."

She held it out, and Ren extended his hand to let her drop it in his palm. When her fingertips brushed his skin, she looked at him strangely, like the touch had suddenly reminded her of something. "The last one I gave this to," she said, softer than ever. "He lost it."

"The one who attacked me?"

"Yes."

"You gave him a pendant? And he lost it?"

"He doesn't have it anymore. He is searching."

"Do you know who that is?" Ren asked, too quickly. "Can you tell me?"

She shook her head, her braid swinging behind her as she did. "So you may tear out his throat when you become a wolf yourself? You, with the advantage of a human mind while he descends into the simple mind of a beast? Secrecy is the foundation upon which I build my dealings. I would not violate my morals that way."

Ren nodded, helpless, not knowing what else to ask. She saw the frustration in his face and added, "The one who attacked you sought help just as you did. He never wanted to harm anyone. Just as you do not." She closed his fingers around the pendant. "Wear it always. Let nothing happen to it. And pray your maker finds his own."

"Can't you just give him another one? If he comes back?"

"He is too proud to ask me again. He thinks he will find his own."

Ren let the cool stone warm in the closeness of his hand, imagining -- probably completely fabricating -- its power coming through him, flooding him. Any port in a storm. Armitage wouldn't steer him wrong. 

"How much?" he finally said. 

"How much?"

"What should I pay you?"

The white witch smiled yet again, tired and maternal and amused yet again, but warm, almost loving. "You owe me nothing. I give myself the gift of not having to treat more of the bitten. It is reward enough to stop the virus. But to hold forgiveness in your heart for the poor man who wanted nothing more than to be cured and who bit you anyway--that is all I ask of you. That is all I can expect you to give."

In the low low light of the sitting area, the white gem in his hand glowed like the moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw some real-life wolves at a sanctuary last week, and it was pretty darn amazing! WOLVES. 
> 
> Hope you like this update! I'd love to have the whole story done by Halloween!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren may truly be ready to sell his tavern and live as Armitage's companion -- but first, he wants to visit Phasma in Montana and find out the truth behind her sudden departure.

The rest of the week was spent going around the villages with Armitage. Ren continued to offer up his services wherever he could, helping to feed pigs and gather firewood and repairing fences. He and Armitage stayed in homes, usually, owned by people who knew Armitage would accept a place to stay as a payment for his service for their sickly child or ailing parent. No other village they visited had anything resembling an inn. The last village on his circuit offered them a barn with a few cots in the loft, so that the farm boys could rest nearby when mare or a cow was close to giving birth. Ren spent a long while staring out the slit of the loft window, flexing the arm that had been his bad one but was now just about healed. Just thinking.

"What are you looking at?" Armitage asked, soft, genuinely curious, as he stripped down for bed, Ren determined to not look back and watch. He _knew_ the kiss had been real, sure as the bites he'd received, but somehow both of them seemed unbelievable still, and he wanted to let Armitage take the reins again, if....if it ever were to happen again.

"Edge of the woods."

"Do you think you'll see...?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe," Armitage agreed. 

He had not asked Ren anything about his visit with the witch. Ren wasn't sure if he should tell him -- something made him feel like he would be betraying the strange gentle woman who lived in the woods, who had offered him some form of protection from the magic or disease or sin or whatever it was that now ran through his blood. He'd stayed silent. Just in case. The white stone sat against Ren's chest, under his shirt, invisible. He would not take it off, ever, he had decided as he'd left the witch's house. Ever.

The image had come into his head, what if he -- accidentally attacked Armitage, out of his own carelessness, or foolishness? He couldn't risk that. Every few minutes he'd reach up to the spot just below his collar and check to make sure the pointed stone was still there.

It was.

"The stars are so beautiful here," Armitage noted -- Ren could hear him coming closer, but he still did not turn back to see. "There's no moon, so you can really see...all of the constellations. I've forgotten what most of the names are. But I know they're there."

"The Big Dipper?" Ren suggested, craning his neck a little bit to try and see out the narrow window a little better. Above the surrounding land-- the fields on one side, now empty and fallow, the woods on the other, teeming with secrets--the stars gleamed, somehow even brighter now that it was a cloudless, moonless night. "Or the....the bull, maybe? Or the flying horse?"

"If I had a flying horse, the circuit would take me half the time," Armitage teased, his hand on Ren's shoulder now. "And it would be far more useful for emergencies..."

"And you could come back to town sooner."

"Wouldn't you like that?"

Finally, Ren turned. 

He barely had time to register how lovely Armitage looked, casual, prepared to sleep after a long day of tending to the village folk, his hair finally beginning to give up, beginning to tangle and curl instead from his day's work, and his skin as luminous-white as the stone the witch had given Ren. There was only a moment between Ren getting to greedily appreciate what was before him and Armitage leaning in, forceful and graceful, propelling himself into Ren's space for another kiss, as aggressive as the last one had been tender. 

Neither of them wanted to be the first to pull away, and so they finally had to stop the initial kiss to draw a breath. "Armitage--"

"I'm sorry, I should have asked if--"

Ren cut him off, determined to up the stakes, determined to let his instincts rule him at _last_ , to finally do what he wanted now that Armitage had indicated it was all right. A new moon, he thought, the time being a werewolf ought to affect him least. Not even the littlest sliver of moon to rule him -- so why did he feel so wild, so animalistic?

"Or maybe not," Armitage went on, breathless, when Ren finally gave him the chance, touching Ren's face. "God almighty. You're a beautiful thing, aren't you?"

"You should have done it sooner."

"In town? We could have never gotten away with--"

"I know. But I wanted you to."

"I always knew that. Ever since I knew what passion was, I knew that was how we--saw each other."

"Armitage, I'll sell the tavern to Rey," Ren said, all in one breath, his voice almost cracking with the force of getting all the words out. "I'll come with you, just like you wanted. We'll live like this, won't we?"

Armitage stroked Ren's cheek with his thumb, looking into his face with the sort of intense familiarity of one looking into a mirror.

"I don't want you to have regrets, Ren. Please don't -- do anything that you'll spend the rest of your life trying to make up for."

"I'd regret it more if I wasn't honest with you. Finally. Now that I finally can be. I'm -- I'm your wolf, you know I am."

"My wolf. Of course." 

"I wouldn't bother you, or anyone, on those nights, when the moon--"

"Hush," Armitage whispered, his hands on Ren's back now, pressing himself close, pressing Ren close to him. "We're not going to discuss that right now. Let's just -- can't we take our privacy, while we have it?"

Yes. 

No moon to howl at, but who could hear them in the barn, making such a ruckus? Couldn't they take their privacy, while they had it?

Yes.

* * *

"What made you decide to finally -- to kiss me?" Ren asked, the following morning, on their way back to town.

Armitage thought about that for a long time, swaying slightly on the back of the borrowed horse. The woods were slowly becoming more familiar to Ren as they approached the town again, as they passed paths and rocks and streams that Ren knew from hunting, from his travels. 

"I suppose I don't have anything to be afraid of, anymore," he finally said.

* * *

Rey had taken to the running of the tavern like a fish to water. She was the sort of person who would stay all night, just to memorize every inch of the place, so no one would think she was uncertain or new or in need of any help, and sure enough, she bustled around confidently like she'd built the place with her own two hands.The regulars who came to drink had seemingly all traded in their loyalties over the week that Ren had been gone, and now they all spoke to her as if Ren had never owned the place at all. The new mistress, the new generation.

_That could make things much easier._

Certainly, it would look like some sort of surrender. But what did it matter, what it would look like? As the patrons laughed at some joke Rey had made at the expense of her former home -- some godawful place out West, barely civilized, with only rattlesnakes for company and sand in your socks, always -- Ren smiled, opening up the letter from Phasma that Rey had saved for him. 

He took a long swallow of ale before reading, hoping he didn't actually have to steady his nerves for anything. But. Just in case. 

_  
Ren,_

_It would make me so happy to see you, at any time that is convenient for you. The horses miss you, I imagine. You've always been so good to them, and....it would really make me happy to see you, too. I miss you. I would be able to explain, more thoroughly, why this was so important for me to do. Letters aren't a good medium for what I really want to say._

_The winters out here are even more vicious than they are back home, Ren. Please be careful on your way to me. If there are threats of storms, don't come until they've passed. I don't want you to have to wait until spring, but I'd rather you be safe, especially with everything that's happened._

_Still. It will be nice to gossip again, won't it? I have a lot to tell. Already I've made such good friends here, and it has made life easier. You'll have much to catch me up on as well, I imagine._

_I look forward to seeing you soon. Send my love to the horses._

_Phasma_

Ren smiled at that last line. Nyx and Celeste had been miserable without her around, and they'd made their displeasure known -- always seeming to look past him when he entered the stable, looking for Phasma instead. He couldn't blame them. This letter seemed more hopeful than the last one, less evasive. She wanted to see him, too. She wanted to talk, she just -- didn't seem comfortable putting whatever was going on down on paper. If he had to go an entire's day ride on a train to find out what the answer was, well, that's simply what he'd have to do.

Rey was telling a story he'd heard a thousand times about playing with a coyote puppy before narrowly escaping from the mother as Ren slipped out of the tavern and headed towards the train station on the very west end of town. Everyone seemed happy to see him -- how was his arm, had he heard from his mother, was Armitage's village woman a help to him, wasn't it nice to have Rey around? He heard his mouth make the sounds of japes and quips and compliments even as his brain felt foggy and strange, detached, filled with a sudden anxiety that these people would murder him if he ever, _ever_ slipped up--

He touched the pointed stone under his shirt, to make sure it was still there, still lending him protection. _There you are. It's all right..._

"How may I help you?" the ticket clerk asked, and Ren realized he was where he'd been heading, the clouds in his head chased off by the question.

"Oh. Yes. Um. I'd like to buy the next ticket to Helena, Montana. When might that be leaving?"

"Helena? Just a moment...." The clerk shuffled some papers, searching for the correct timetable, as Ren fiddled with the cord of his necklace. "Ah, yes, here. Well, there's not another direct train to Helena until the twenty-eighth. It leaves at six in the morning and arrives at half-past ten in the evening. Will that be all right?"

"Yes, that's fine. And the return trip?"

"Well, according to the stationmaster, there haven't been so many trains going out there and back because of the poor weather. They're trying to eliminate accidents, things like that...yes, so there are fewer trains coming and going this month." The clerk pushed his glasses back up on his nose. The next train from Helena back here would be on February fifth. Will that be all right?"

The twenty-eighth until the fifth. A whole week. He was sure Phasma wouldn't mind hosting him for all of that time, but if she did, he could always rent a room in town. He had no concern whatsoever for what Mitaka might think about the situation, if he was being honest with himself. "Yes, all right," Ren answered. "I'll take those tickets, thank you."

It did not dawn upon Ren until he was nearly back inside the tavern, close enough to hear the murmurs of conversation inside and Rey calling for someone's attention, close enough to smell the good sharp smell of the ale, that the full moon would fall during the time that he was in Montana.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're chugging along! Thanks for sticking it out with me -- I hope you're enjoying it!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phasma knows the truth, and has a story to tell.

Ren hadn't meant to fall asleep on the train -- it had seemed impossible that something that didn't involve him working or even walking would wear him out at all. And he had been on train rides before, of course, though never ones this long. He'd visited his mother the year before, but that ride had barely taken two hours from the time his foot left the platform at home to the time it touched the platform in the capital. This trip was all day long, nearly the entire length of time he would be awake for the day, and somehow sitting just about in one spot and staring out the window had been exhausting. Watching the blur of the trees, the scrubby plains coated with snowy patches, the small towns and settlements, more trees, more trees, herds of deer running parallel through the dead grass, more plains, all of it fading into a white-and-brown haze that quickly faded to grey, then black, as the hour got later...

_On his back, not knowing if he was a man or a wolf, his limbs flailing against the ground as he tried to force himself up to run as another wolf stood over him, teeth snapping, its hot breath blown into his face and he lets out a strangled cry in the face of the creature, a sound so garbled and fearful that he cannot tell, still, if he is a human or not, and then the feeling of teeth sinking into skin but is he biting or being bitten, it's so unclear --_

Thank God this car was almost empty -- he winced as he heard himself gasp awake, the way a child gasps when he catches some little animal in the river and it leaps from his hands or maybe bites him. An innocent, fearful sound, a sound that the other passengers wouldn't expect to hear from the tall, broad man sitting by the window, no doubt. But the few other passengers that were around were either asleep themselves or just drifting off. 

A couple around Ren's own age sat a few rows up, the woman napping on the shoulder of her husband. Her red hair wasn't quite the same shade as Armitage's -- much darker, more of an auburn -- but it gave Ren some degree of calm to see it and think of the previous night, which he had spent with Armitage under the pretext of loaning his own room to Rey and her fiance. Finn had arrived not long after he and Armitage had come back from their tour of the villages, and Ren had, under the cover of kindness, insisted the happy couple have his room since he was going to be leaving again so soon. He'd stay with Armitage the night before he left for Montana, have his bite injuries examined once more just to be sure. 

He knew Rey was too smart to be anything other than suspicious, but she hadn't minded, either. "Give the doctor my regards," she told him in a mild tone that suggested she knew it wasn't the bite injuries that Armitage would be examining. "As well as Phasma, once you get there. I can't believe she ran out of me the way she did, she owed me a race on one of those horses of hers..."

He promised to pass the message along, and that was that.

He had asked, once more, if Armitage would come with him, but Armitage had refused again, as gently as he could. "I'll be too busy," he said, just as he had before. "If someone needs me -- Ren, I have to be where I'm needed most. It would be too hard for me to realize that I wasn't where I needed to be. I know you understand..."

The way he brushed Ren's hair out of his face to give himself an excuse to touch his face made this pill a little easier to swallow, though seeing the sleepy couple up front did make Ren's heart pang a little bit. But at least he'd be back in a week, and that was plenty of time to talk with Phasma over whether he should actually make good on the promises that were so easy to make when they were cuddled up close in some far-off village, hidden away in the dark. And he'd finally find out what made her leave so quickly.....

There was no getting back to sleep now. Ren shifted in his seat and stared outside, peering out at what he could see in the light of the moon that struggled out from behind the clouds. _Are there wolves out there?_ It seemed likely -- so few cities and town, and so much wilderness. A perfect place to go running, hunting--

_Are there wolves out here who are also men?_

* * *

Finding the address that Phasma's letters had been coming from wasn't hard at all. After arriving at the train station, he caught a ride on a cart with a man who told him no fewer than three times that he had been taught how to create fire out of thin air by a medicine man. He paid the man with a bottle of wine after being dropped off by the ranch house and insisted he didn't need help any help carrying the bags. 

He allowed himself a moment to wonder what he would do if Phasma didn't open the door -- try to flag the weird man on the cart down again? Go meditate in the freezing wilderness? -- but there were lights on, and this was the right address, yes, it must be, with the enormous barn way out back, illuminated in the moonlight--

"Ren!"

Phasma, blessedly, looked wonderful. The same as always -- marriage, it seemed, had not changed her manner of dress, or the way she kept her hair in a short bob, or the mischief in her eyes that had been flattened and dulled the day she had come to Ren and announced she was leaving. "God, Ren, I'm so glad you came -- no problems with the weather? Did you walk all the way from the train station?"

"I hitched a ride," Ren explained, making his way inside after Phasma finally let go and held the door open to let him into the low-slung, comfortably-warm space. "Where's, ah?"

"Out," Phasma answered airily, not quite able to hide her smile. "I told him that I had a private conversation to have with you, and he knew better than to ask twice. It's awfully late for coffee, but we have cocoa, if you'd like some."

"I would," Ren said, sitting himself down at the kitchen table. There was a strange feeling in his stomach, like he was about to jump into a river from a high tree branch. Not a sinking but a soaring, with a potential to plummet. "Thanks. I'm glad, you know, we're going to have this conversation."

"You came an awfully long way to hear it."

"I had to, it seems."

"You did," Phasma agreed, pouring milk into the saucepan and placing it on the stove. "I wasn't worried about anyone on my end seeing what I had to write to you, you know? Married life with Mitaka has been awfully convenient because he'll do whatever I say. If I tell him to leave the room while I write a letter, he doesn't come back inside until I say. If I tell him to spend the night at an inn while my friend comes in from out East, he gets his wallet and says he'll see me in the morning."

"Does he think we're having an affair?"

Phasma shrugged. "He's besotted. As far as he's concerned, he's won. It's almost entertaining to see what he'll put up with."

"You're awfully cruel," Ren told her, finding himself unable to keep himself from smiling either. "Do you think he'd believe that we're not?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Does it matter? I have him out of our hair for awhile. And the reason I was so cagey in my letters is....well." She gave the milk a stir. "I didn't want to get you in any sort of situation, if anyone else was around, or wanted to read the letters."

"As in....?"

She sighed. "Let me tell you a story."

* * *

_  
It was New Year's Eve and Jezebel, Phasma's own horse, was acting strange as she urged her down the trail towards the inn where the party would be. She had the briefest flicker of remembrance about that horse of Dameron's, the one that had been killed by a wolf some time before. Was the culprit still out there? Wolves hadn't been a problem in these parts for so long -- but maybe now--?_

_She reached into her shoulder bag for her pistol, determined to take no chances. If some animal wanted to try and come for her and the horse, let it. Phasma and the horse continued down the path, Phasma now straining to hear every little rustle and crack of twigs in the woods around her. A losing game, to be sure. You'd go insane, thinking every movement of the owls and mice and foxes was something more dangerous. But the journey was relatively short, and it was better to be safe than sorry, and besides, she trusted the instincts of her animals above her own, and Jezebel seemed off, somehow. Wary._

_There was a sound, up ahead, a sound like someone being punched in the stomach. A growl. Everything sounding distant, and yet strangely close -- how close? She couldn't quite tell, but Jezebel was backing up, ready to run -- before she could bolt, Phasma swung herself off the horse's back, gun drawn, ready, God, something was out there on the path, and people would be coming and going, the people in town, kids, for Christ's sake, she couldn't --_

_Around the curve in the path, beneath the light of the full moon -- like, she thought with a rush of absurd precise reasoning, like an awful scene under a spotlight in some play -- there was Ren, alone and sprawled flat on his stomach, with a wolf on top of him, tearing at his shoulder, at his back-- the wolf did not look at her until she screamed, she couldn't help it, screamed his name. Only then did it seem to abandon its task to try and intimidate her instead--_

_She fired, getting close, but missed -- Jesus, why, how? She normally never missed -- she shot again, missed again, but it was close enough to frighten it away, not the result she wanted, she wanted the thing_ dead _, but right now she needed to focus on Ren, she had to bring him back to the village, had to get him to Armitage--_

__

__

_Some divine force must have been looking out for her, or for Ren, really. Jezebel had run off, back in the direction of the town, and others on the way to the party had seen the horse taking off, back towards the barn. They helped her load Ren onto the cart that they were using to take cheeses to the party, shoving the wheels out of the way and turning around as quickly as they could on the narrow road. Some of the men who were armed elected to go searching for the wolf -- of course they knew what had happened, Phasma had told them, in a voice that was shaking but not hysterical, that he had been bitten, that it was a wolf, a_ wolf _, she'd shot it twice but missed, she was pretty sure --_

_They'd had to throw some of the cheese wheels off the side of the cart because they were soaked in blood by the time they arrived at Armitage's clinic, which was dark and empty._

_"He must already be at the inn for the party," someone said._

_"Someone needs to go get him--"_

_"There isn't time for that!" Phasma snapped. "Get the door to the clinic open right now. Armitage isn't going to care, I'll stay here until someone finds him and sends him back. I know how to close a wound, at the very least." Granted, she'd never done it on a human, but she'd practiced on dozens of horses, and experience with animals was better than none at all. She couldn't guarantee she'd do a pretty job, but hopefully someone would find Armitage and he could run up and help. Maybe everything would end up fine and she could joke with him about splitting the fee..._

_The men who had given them a ride back into town stayed for awhile. Helping her clean Ren off, searching through Armitage's things for supplies. She'd pay him out of pocket if it came to that, but Armitage was absolutely devoted to Ren, and he'd probably be distraught beyond belief when he found out this had happened -- but for now, Ren seemed like he was going to pull through. The main thing was to prevent infection and stop the bleeding, just like treating a horse. Fingers crossed.  
Eventually, the others headed out, either to go hunting for the wolf themselves or to search for Armitage or to go to the party, having done all they could. Phasma stayed alone in the clinic as the new year arrived without fanfare, the only indication that anything was different was the chime of Armitage's clock._

_Armitage did return. Around five in the morning, and covered in blood. His clothes were torn, like two people had stood on either side of him and fought for them right off his back, and his hair was matted with blood. There was blood in every imaginable crevice, between his teeth, under his fingernails, and the dark circles under his eyes looked like they had been smudged on with coal._

_It was hard to say which of them was more surprised to see the other._

_What tipped her off, looking back, was Armitage's total lack of surprise, seeing Ren lying in the patient bed, bandaged as expertly as Phasma could manage. "He's alive," Hux said, not quite a question, and not quite believing it either._

_She just knew, then._

_"You. You did this." Her heart began to pound. "They're looking for -- Armitage, you did this."_

_He didn't even make an attempt to deny it. "I didn't mean to."_

_"You_ did _this!" she shouted, the hysteria she had managed to swallow all night long finally bubbling to the surface -- in an emergency, she could handle herself, she could shoot a wolf, she could do off-the-cuff camp surgery, but this, this was far too much. "You did it, though--_ don't _," she warned, as he took another step towards her. "Don't you dare come near me,_ monster _!"_

_He winced more at that than he had when she'd been shooting at him. "Phasma," he tried again, holding up his hands as if in complete surrender. "It was an accident."_

_"An accident? He could die, Armitage!"_

_"You saved his life--"_

_"You almost took it!" She rose, realizing the pair that she and Armitage must make visually, him in his torn clothes and her in her party dress, both of them covered in Ren's blood. "Armitage, you could--I can't--"_

_"I'll take care of him from here."_

_"To cover your tracks?"_

_Finally, finally he got angry, that jab pierced him like nothing else had. "To atone for what I did to someone I love!" he snarled, his face reddening. "To undo what I've done!"_

_"But how can you possibly -- you've changed him--"_

_"I can help him. I can undo it, I know how--"_

_"You couldn't even help yourself!"_

_"I can help_ him _, all right? I can--this was a mistake, I'm telling you--"_

_She had nothing more to say. Her hand was itching for her pistol, just for a moment there, even though she liked Armitage so much, she still found it so hard to believe that he was responsible. She was tired of hearing him repeat himself, she was tired of listening to him try to make excuses when she had done all the work to save Ren's life -- but there was something deeper, too, something that scared her on a level she didn't quite want to admit. As far as she could tell, she was the only one that knew, and she wasn't sure exactly what she could do, or what she wanted to do with the information._

_Or what Armitage would do with the fact that she knew, now._

_She had no intention of blackmailing him, truly, but she wasn't sure she could keep this information hidden for long. Knowing. Seeing the dried blood crusted in his eyelashes._

_He knew she'd shot at him. That she had sent others looking for him._

_It wasn't on purpose, though._

_Just as he had said._

_None of this was on purpose._

_She suddenly felt horribly itchy, as though she'd collapsed in a patch of poison ivy and couldn't get up, just had to lie there knowing it would get worse and worse, that she would tear her skin off with the knowledge--_

_And Ren. Ren can't know. Should she tell him? His heart would break, he loved Armitage, adored him, she had been the one entrusted with that information too --_

_It was so cowardly, but she could not bear the weight of secrets any longer. She had to--had to get away--_

_Phasma took a deep breath, wiped her sweaty palms upon her ruined dress, and took off walking in the direction of her own home, rehearsing what she would say to Mitaka to get them the hell out of this town as quickly as possible, before the next full moon at the very latest but preferably now, right now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, so much for finishing before the end of October, but! We're getting deep now, aren't we? I hope this is the chapter that confirms your suspicions or maybe catches you off guard!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren is sure he will be safe during the full moon, but he's not so sure about Armitage.

The tears had begun for Ren long before Phasma had finished her story, but there was also a dull flat feeling in his chest, like a skipping stone lodged in his heart. Whatever feeling was the opposite of surprise. Thinking about it, he thought he'd be shocked, that it would stun him into silence to learn that Armitage had been responsible all along. But there was too much that made sense. Not just Armitage's knowledge about his -- his condition. It was the ferocious desperation that Armitage had shown in trying to fix him, heal him, of course in retrospect it looked like atonement.

Was all of this _atonement_? Did Armitage really even want him, or did he just feel as though this was his cross to bear, his punishment for changing Ren into--

The dreams, the two wolves sleeping together. The wolves tearing at each at each other's throats. 

When he reached for his throat to touch the white stone, trying to soak up any comfort he could find, he felt only warm skin. 

"Ren?"

"I'm missing --"

"What?"

"I'm sorry--I can't --I need --"

"What are you looking for?"

"The train, I left--on the train, I think I left it--" He was tearing at his shirt now, maybe it had fallen, the pendant, he had to have it--the moon would be full either tomorrow or the next day and he didn't know what he'd do if....

"A necklace? Something for around your neck?"

Ren stopped tearing at the neck of his shirt, stared at Phasma through the blurry veil of tears. "You know what I'm talking about?"

"I found something on the ground. On my way to Mitaka's before I left. Is it yours?"

She rose, gave Ren a comforting squeeze on the shoulder as she passed him by, on the way to her room. She was gone just a moment -- he heard the soft scrape of a drawer opening, and then she was back, an identical pendant to his in the palm of her hand. Same leather cord, same pointed white stone. Indistinguishable. Ren wiped at his face with his sleeve and reached out for it, and she didn't pull away. "Is it yours?" Phasma asked again. 

"No, I didn't get mine until after you left -- Armitage took me to..." He examined the stone, thinking back to the words of the witch.

_He doesn't have it anymore. He is searching._

And it had been in Montana all along.

Armitage was back in the town, alone, without any protection. _Surely he went back to the witch, without me, he had to have--he knows where to get a stone, he knows who can help him--_ But he couldn't shake the image in his mind from Phasma's story, the men of the town with their guns drawn, ready to fire--

"What does it do?" Phasma asked softly. 

"It lets you keep your mind, supposedly." Ren drew his handkerchief and blew his nose, then looped Armitage's necklace around his own neck. "When you change. You aren't -- mindless. You don't attack people."

"And this was Armitage's....?"

"He lost it." 

"And then attacked you. And could attack someone else." 

"Phasma, I have to go back and find mine. And give him his."

She blinked. "Are there even any trains going back now?"

God damn it, he'd forgotten; the clerk at the station had told him that the next train coming back from Helena was the fifth. "I have to h-help him," he croaked, the tears rising up in him like a sudden wave. "I need to bring him....someone's going to shoot him...."

"Ren, Ren. Stop. Calm down." She knelt down next to his chair, taking both of his hands in her own. "Listen to me. I shot at him from hardly any distance and couldn't hit him. The first two shots I've missed since I was a little kid. I think he is -- safe. In a way I can't explain. I think it would take a lot to bring him down."

He bit his lip hard enough for it to really hurt. "Phasma, we--since you've been gone, he and I have become--much closer."

"Closer in what way?" Phasma asked, just barely above a whisper.

"Closer than brothers. Close like lovers." What was _like_ about it, though? "Close as lovers. We are...."

"Do you forgive him?"

There was no simple answer to that. Ren felt his head swim, like all the tears that wanted to come out had been dammed up in his skull, making everything feel unsteady. "I don't know," he finally said, squeezing her hands tighter. "I have to talk to him, but he has to stay alive. I need him to live."

"He's smart," Phasma said. "He's smart enough to learn from his mistakes. He'll go far away, far enough to not attract notice..."

He had to believe that. He had to imagine that Armitage had a plan, one that he had kept hidden from Ren while Ren was away, stuck here in Montana. That everything Armitage had kept concealed from him was for his own safety, his own sanity. Armitage, after all, knew everything.

Would Ren have done things differently if their positions were reversed? He couldn't say. 

Phasma sent him to bed after a long while, not saying anything at all for nearly twenty minutes, just being close, her absorbing as much of his terror as she could. He lay in the guest bed with his eyes closed for hours, but sleep wouldn't come. In the morning, he heard the sound of Mitaka returning, and Phasma greeting him quietly, without passion. If Mitaka had questions about why he had been exiled from his own home for so long, he did not ask in Ren's hearing.

* * *

It was hard to shake the anxiety of not knowing where Armitage was, if he had gone and thrown aside his pride in order to try and find the witch in time, if he would be safe from the _possibilities_ that loomed large in Ren's head. But Phasma was a very good host and she did everything she could to keep Ren distracted throughout the day. She took him to meet the horses she had bought since coming out west. "I do miss the ones I sold, God," she told him, pointing out which ones would enjoy a nice petting and which would sooner bite his fingers off like they were nothing more than carrots. 

"I should have brought Nyx with me. She'd like it out here."

"I'd like to see you buy her a train ticket."

Ren let himself laugh for the first time since Phasma had told her story the night before. 

They went to lunch and she bought them both steaks. She told him which taverns were any good, and which ones to avoid. "None as good as yours, obviously."

"Practically Rey's, now. She's running things in my absence. She says you owe her a race."

"When she bothers to come out here, I'll be happy to demolish her," Phasma answered, cutting off a handsome forkful of steak and grinning.

"Unfair. You're making her fight on your turf."

"If she were as good as she claimed she was from that feral upbringing of hers, it wouldn't matter."

Ren indulged himself in a momentary fantasy in which he was the one substituting at the tavern while Rey was visiting Phasma. Enjoying it for a little while and then relinquishing it at the end of the week to go back and follow Armitage around on his rounds. _Let it be. Let it be so. Please, let him live through this night and I'll follow him to the ends of the earth...._

He ate his meat, which he had ordered far rarer than hers, in half the time it took Phasma. Neither of them commented upon it until much later, when they were back in the privacy of the house. Brimming with anxiety, he'd told Phasma he needed to _do_ something, so she put him to work helping her with chores. Not what guests normally did, but strangely enough, it helped. "I suppose it'll be tonight," Phasma said, trying to sound unconcerned as they washed dishes together. Outside the window, Ren could see the distant shape of Mitaka, heading towards the barn to make sure everything was locked up for the night. 

"I have the necklace."

"But you'll still turn?"

"There's no helping that."

"I don't know the rules of these things, Ren. I just know that the bloody steak is new for you." 

"Be glad it's something that doesn't attract more notice." He was washing faster than she could dry -- a skill picked up from his years at the tavern -- and the dishes were piling up fast at her elbow. "For the most part, it's been pretty easy to hide. The silver, that's the only thing...." And Armitage had been wearing his gloves when he tested the silver on him, he suddenly recalled. _Every step of the way, he was hiding his condition. I never stopped to think about it..._

"What should I do with you when you're.....changed?"

"Keep me in the spare room. I'll hide there."

Phasma set a fork onto a dishrag, on top of the other clean cutlery. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Can I lock you inside?"

The question pained him more than he expected, and she must have seen it in his face, because her tone grew soft. "When I saw it happening to you, it was frightening beyond imagination," she explained. "I want to be positive that everyone will be all right. Especially you. Just in case, Ren."

"You can do it," he said, quickly, before he felt the despair snap at his heels. She took his hand, which had grown wrinkled and soft in the water, and kissed at his knuckles. 

"It's going to be all right, Ren."

Ren put the dishes away while Phasma went to find a properly sturdy lock. "I'll tell Mitaka you sleepwalked last night," she told him. "I'll handle everything. Just....be well. As much as you can."

His mouth was too dry to speak but he gave her a hug and went to his room, feeling absurdly like some kind of chastised child. There was a loud click, and that was that. 

The first sign that something was changing was how warm he felt. Feverish. Too--too warm. He opened the window with a loud squeak, then sat down on the bed, gripping the white stone between his thumb and forefinger, praying to -- he didn't know who, or what, something, somebody -- that everything would be all right. 

When he closed his eyes, his head began to spin, and a feeling of nausea poured upward through him. But when he tried to open them again, they felt as heavy as if he had been in a deep sleep. As slowly as he could--God, if he moved too fast, he'd vomit, he knew it --he rotated his body enough to lie down on his back on the mattress. He had expected pain, but not this, not the feeling of melting into discomfort, as if he were more ill than he had ever been in his life.

The place on his shoulder that had been bitten itched, like the healing was coming undone, God, no, not after all of that--

And then there was no sound or feeling or understanding, just blessed, soft blackness, as if he had been covered up in the finest fur blanket, and his body went happily limp for -- who knew how long? Forever, perhaps. Maybe only a few minutes.

The first thing he heard when he came to was Mitaka's voice, shouting--

"Where's your gun? Phas, where's your--"

_Don't call her Phas, you haven't earned that._

"What the hell's going on?" 

"There's a wolf--"

Ren sat bolt upright, tasting the panic like metal in his mouth. Mitaka knew he was in here, and he had his mind, he was himself but also not, because his body moved in a way it never had, he was heavier but lighter, he could smell everything, could smell the sweat on Mitaka's brow from where he was crouched, awkward, a man bent into the shape of a wolf, in the dark locked bedroom. He had his mind but he would make the conscious choice to tear out that man's throat if he came in here with a gun--

"A wolf? Where?" Phasma's voice was shrill-- _she won't give me away, she'd shoot him first_

"Out by the back of the barn!"

"What?"

"You have to shoot it!" 

He could hear Phasma approaching his room, ostensibly to grab her gun out of the closet, but she paused at his door. "Ren," she said, and her voice had gone back to normal. "I am going out. You rest, all right?" 

He couldn't speak, but let out a low growling moan that he knew sounded nothing like a human voice. As long as she knew he was in there, and safe.

"There you go, I'll be back, it won't be long..."

And then she was rummaging through the closet, and then her footsteps were clattering down the hallway, Mitaka following behind, still babbling about the wolf's location. 

There was total stillness in the house, and the sound of their footsteps crunching through the snow. Then nothing. Ren clambered down off the bed, panting. 

_Another wolf._

He really ought to stay inside, stay hidden. If he found a way out, Phasma might mistake him for the other wolf. She didn't know what he looked like, this way -- _he_ didn't know what he looked like this way -- and she could shoot him dead. But she herself had said--

Safe. In a way she couldn't explain.

He had to trust that he would be safe, too.

It took some time, more than he would have liked, but he managed to press his bulk through the window and slip out into the snow below, and the smells of the world around him showed him exactly where to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there! So close to the end! I sure hope Ren's okay now that he's out under that moon....


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is uncertain, but Ren and Armitage have one another.

The wind kicked up the loose snow in front of him as Ren ran forward, the mental map he had of the farm not so useful now that it was dark, but not necessary, because the smells -- God, the smells --

Manure, leather, smoke, oats, sweat, pine --

He could hear Mitaka shouting, still, _shut up_ , so loud and frightened he was! He was crunching through the snow out by the back of the barn, still demanding that Phasma look, that she shoot, why was he making himself so obvious?

But hadn't he climbed out the window on four paws and left a perfectly linear trail through the snow? Like a complete idiot -- thinking only of what he could hear and smell, what he hoped to find. Making himself completely obvious as well. 

Phasma would hide his tracks. If she found them first. 

The clouds skittered just around the moon but didn't block the light that hung silver-white in the cold air. Ren stopped, listening to Mitaka cry out again. "It was just over there!" he could hear Mitaka saying, off in the distance. He'd hide his own tracks, maybe. Run all around until everything was mixed up. Drag his feet until 

_Or silence Mitaka forever, just one bite is all it would take._

No. Whose voice was that? His own, his darkest inner advisor. The wolf-ness that was now part of him, his own blood and flesh and body, the thing that would come out in full force and consume him if anything happened to that necklace. The leather cord that held his entire life together. Not even Armitage could resist it...

Only in his own defense would he attack. Only if he had to. 

"I'm getting my pistol," Mitaka called.

"Dopheld, for God's sake."

"What, you want the horses to be attacked?"

"How is it going to get into the barn?"

"There were odd things happening with the wolf attacks back home, that's why we left!" Mitaka shouted back, his voice strained, a clear cold-air wheeze audible as he inhaled to say more. "Isn't it better to be safe than sorry?"

He kept running, sticking to the permeter of the property, along the marching solid lines of the fence, letting anything that smelled familiar guide him, as if he were the planchette of a Ouija board, simply the vessel through which a larger hand was moving. The smells of Phasma, of Mitaka....

And then he smelled Armitage, knew it was him as surely as he recognized Armitage's face through the window of the clinic, as surely as he knew the feeling of his hand on Ren's cheek when they were tucked away somewhere small and close and discreet on their journey through the villages. As sure as knowing the smell of an onion or a strawberry or a roast chicken, he knew that Armitage was--there. Nearby. 

He was so absorbed in having recognized the scent that the first shot, which whizzed past his ears and made him take off. There was that invisible hand again, the instinct of an animal, sitting sidesaddle with his normal mind, keeping him alive instead of swallowing him up, stealing his body and soul until moonset. 

_Phasma, no, it's me, don't--_

Not her, though. The smell of her was too distant--

_Mitaka! Damn him!_

He was ready when he heard the second shot from the pistol. _Leave me alone let me just find him I'm not going to hurt you--_ He didn't think it was possible to run any faster, but he did, tearing through the loose snow, his heart hammering as he scanned with nose and eyes and ears, trying to find--

What he ended up running into was not a major body of water, just a pond for the horses to drink from. He'd seen it earlier, when Phasma had shown him around, barely noticeable, maybe a foot deep, covered in a scab-thin layer of ice. In the course of running both towards and away, he'd barrelled right into it. It was not deep enough to drown in, but it was bitter cold -- the snow hadn't made much of an impact, not with such a thick coat of fur, but now it was soaked in a cold slush, and he was trying to scramble out from the pond and back onto solid ground, he was slipping and sticking at the same time, suffocated with desperation, and he was losing the seconds that he needed to just _escape_ \--

"Jesus!"

There was a sudden _fwomph_ of Mitaka's thickly-bundled body falling facefirst into the snow, and panting, tongue lolling, Ren lifted himself out of the slick low pond and turned to look. 

The wolf on top of Mitaka was not biting him, was not transferring the curse -- he was not behaving like a beast, he was behaving like a trained guard animal, a loyal dog. Auburn fur, not the bright red of Armitage's hair but darker, thicker. And around his neck....

Ren had a sudden vision of himself in Armitage's bed the night before he caught the train to Montana, adjusting in the darkness as Armitage seduced him yet again, for the tenth or hundredth time that night, seeing what he had not noticed in the actual moment he'd lived it -- the necklace lying loose under the blankets, unnoticed, untouched. Until Armitage came, all this way, probably the only train coming out to Helena for awhile, to return it. To try and make it in time, with no promise of his own safety or mental state once he gave it back.

"Please--God, please--" Mitaka was shrieking into the snow, Armitage's weight pressed upon him hard enough to keep him from getting up despite his mighty struggle, but so careful, so careful not to bite. The pistol lay embedded in a few inches of snow, too far away to be of any use to him. "God, please, don't let me -- I'll do anything, help-- Phasma, help!"

The shrieks might as well have been the screeching of an owl, the squeaking of a mouse. Less than nothing. The two wolves stared one another down, and Ren suddenly got the intense, creeping sensation that Armitage was trying very hard to determine if he was Ren, how he could possibly be Ren. 

There had never been a moment where he wanted to speak more, to cry out and promise it was him, that he was there. 

He tossed his head, careful not to growl, to give any indication whatsoever that he meant harm -- to simply show him they had simply accidentally traded pointed stones over the course of time, like some kind of comedy of errors. 

Noisly, muffled, shivering, Mitaka was praying aloud.

"I'll give--e-verything I have to the church, please, just don't let me die, God, I'll do anything....keep them away from me...."

Ren moved forward, close enough to see Armitage's beath, and picked up the pistol gingerly in his teeth. Then he threw all his faith into Armitage understanding he wanted to be followed and bounded off, dropping the gun as he made his way back to the house, silently praying himself that Mitaka would lie there, or run, would accept their retreat as the miracle he'd been counting on. He didn't dare look back, but the scents in the air told him that Armitage was a few steps behind. 

He took some time to run around, trampling his own prints outside the bedroom window, running off in spiralling sprints as Armitage stood by, waiting. The window to the darkened bedroom still hung wide open, and though wriggling back inside was more difficult than getting out, he was able to make it happen. _Follow, follow...._

Armitage forced his way, awkward but determined, into the gap of the window as Mitaka called out for Phasma, again and again, like a calf looking for its mother. Ren clambered up onto the bed, still not quite sure how to sit, how to lie, how to interact with obects not designed for him in this form, as Armitage shimmied inside and then fell to the floor, panting loud, mouth open in a sort of mocking, ironic, toothy grin. Safe. They were safe.

Assuming nobody came and knocked the door down. Assuming Mitaka didn't look too hard at the footprints in the snow, didn't read to much into what all the running around had meant....

Safe. Safe to lie together, two wolves curled up, just like he's imagined -- not tearing at each other, they had dodged that bullet along with all of the others.

Armitage clambered onto the bed with him, and the metal frame gasped in protest, not meant for the weight of two big animals, had barely been designed for Ren's human bulk. But they lay still and close and silent, hearing only each other's breaths, stirring only to sidle up closer so they could rest, so they could soak in the relief that came with escaping by the skin of one's teeth.

* * *

Everything ached the next morning, worse than any hangover Ren had ever experienced, far worse than the day after Christmas, or past New Year's Days, worse than the day after the harvest festival. The light burned, and when Ren sat up to try and draw the curtain -- the room was absolutely _freezing_ , how had he possibly been too hot? -- he realized that he had been lying at a bizarre angle. In a wink, before he could lose his nerve, he stood, slammed the window shut, pulled the curtains so the room went suddenly dark, and then climbed back into the bed, where Armitage was just now stirring.

"No blood on me," Armitage whispered. 

"Didn't bite anyone. You remember everything?"

"I do. Do you?"

"I do."

"Did you remember anything from last time?" Ren asked.

"I attacked -- the wolf that made me. And killed it. Killed a deer, that's what the other wolf showed up for. I tore its throat out. And I almost killed you."

Ren had seen it, then. Had seen the past, visions of the maker of his maker. The wolf that killed the other.....had never been him. 

Armitage began to shiver audibly now, and Ren lifted the blanket so he could throw it over them both properly, cover them just right.

"Could use some fur now," Ren joked. 

"Thank God your window was open, though," Armitage whispered. 

"I should thank you -- you came all this way out here...."

"Where did you get the pendant? Phasma?"

"She found yours before she left. She didn't know it-- was what it was."

"I really did look for it..."

"It's yours if you want it." Ren touched the pointed stone that was, yes, there, still there. 

Armitage shook his head. "That one's yours now. If I can have this one."

"It seems almost a waste to not take it after you came so far to give it to me."

"I come where I'm most needed, remember?"

That made Ren's throat burn with gratitude, and he rolled onto his side, pressing his nose into Armitage's shoulder. "You really meant that," he said, and it was not a question. 

They lay in silence in the half-dark, Ren staring at the strip of sunlight that glimmered along the wall from the gap between the curtains for a long while. Finally Armitage spoke up: "You'll have to smuggle me out. Phasma won't want to see me here, I imagine."

"Phasma....I think it's more complicated than that. I've talked to her. I told her...."

Armitage said nothing, just reached up to stroke the tangles from Ren's hair. "You think everything will be all right?"

It was the kind of question that, before all this, Ren could have never imagined Armitage asking him. Armitage was too knowledgable, too businesslike, too proud, to ever ask something like that of anybody. But things had changed, and if Ren was lucky, they'd keep changing -- he'd set terms with Rey so he could really sell the tavern to her, he'd talk things out with Phasma, to let her know that she didn't need to be afraid. Would she move back, after so much effort and so little time? He hoped that maybe, maybe she would.

"Yes," he said, without any hesitation. "It will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! We made it to the end! This took me so, so much longer to finish than I expected and I'm so grateful to everyone who was patient and encouraging through this incredibly drawn-out process! You guys are the real and true MVPs!

**Author's Note:**

> A new series! I have always rather loved werewolves, and it's about time I entered them into my Kylux stories. 
> 
> I know things look bleak by the end of chapter 1, but you get a 100% no MCD guarantee from me. Ren's adventures have only just begun...
> 
> Y'all, I was never the Horse Girl, so I apologize if any of my Horse Facts are not as Factual as they could be. I Googled dutifully but you know. Just pretend anything I got wrong is right in my fictional universe where people can also turn into wolves. The animal rules are loose, folks.


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